It doesn't do anything new, but it's definitely worth at least a rent for any Silent Hill fan.
It was this that made it stand out as one of the greats, otherwise it would have probably been seen as a Resident Evil knockoff. And that's just the thing, without the complicated storyline it just another poop-flavored survivor horror with wave after wave of mindless zombies/monsters coming after you. But thank god the writing team is still working as hard as ever...enter Silent Hill Origins. Now I'm not saying that the storyline is bad, I'm saying that there isn't much of a story at all. For all the Silent Hill games you are left in the dark for most of the story but it is slowly unveiled to you what may or not be going on. But in this game, once everything is reveled to you you can't help but ask yourself "is that it?" The past games lead you up to the game's climax where you discover something that is so powerful it may make your bowels erupt in a fit of climaxy goodness (grow up), but the problem with this game is that if you've already played the other games you can pretty much guess what's gonna happen about a quarter way through the bloody game. In fact, most of the best things that make up the story are directly stolen from Silent Hill 2.
Trying to say this next part without ruining anything is as difficult as finding a girlfriend who plays as many video games as you do and DOESN'T show any interest in yaoi. But here it goes, for those of you who love Pyramid Head will hate how this game decides to make his presence not-so-unique-anymore. But I digress.
What is good about this game is that the developers have decided to return to the origins of the game itself. Yes, it is a prequel so of course it does but that isn't what I am talking about so shut up and sit back down. What I mean is Silent Hill went from one of the best atmospheric games (Silent Hill 1) to one with the best storyline (Silent Hill 2) to one of the prettiest games of it's time (Silent Hill 3) to...Silent Hill 4. Seriously, who was the one that decided to take the radio and flashlight out of the game completely???
What I am trying to get at is that this game is more similar to the original Silent Hill than any of the others in the series. It doesn't rely on graphics or the story to set the mood. (And yeah, I know I complained about the lackage of a good story in one of the above paragraphs but: #1 I don't care, and #2 I'm really drunk right now. So anywhoo, as I was trying to say before I rudely interrupted myself repeatedly until it seemed as though I was just stalling until I could remember what I was trying to say...lalala..... it is the atmosphere that makes this game good. I know you weren't expecting me to say that this game was good after my brilliant introduction and body paragraph, but that's just how life tends to work out sometimes.
Sure the game is pretty short. and it isn't very easy on the eyes. In fact, if you've ever walked in on your grandma changing, it probably looks something like that. But the story does fill in some gaps that hardcore fans would give their left...arm to get a hold of. And although it does absolutely nothing new for the series I don't see why any Silent Hill fans wouldn't enjoy this game, and perhaps it would get a few new fans as well since it is also on the psp. I'd give it a thumbs up but by the end of this sentence they will already placed upon my 360's analog sticks scanning Xbox Live for any shred of evidence that Silent Hill 5 is actually being worked on.